strawberry footballs with white chocolate laces

For Melodie's preschool Chinese New Year's party this year, the only thing left on the sign up sheet was "strawberries". So I signed up for that. But of course, I couldn't just bring plain 'ol strawberries, so I decided to dress them up with a bit of melted white chocolate. I melted some white chocolate chips on the stove in a double boiler, then let it cool slightly before pouring the chocolate into a ziplock bag with a corner snipped off (I was too lazy to deal with piping bags and tips - it was midnight by the time I got around to making these!), and then piped a bit onto each strawberry.

The next day, when my son Matthew saw me bring the strawberries to Melodie's preschool, and he whined, "Awww, but I won't get to have any!" I assured him that I had another package of strawberries at home, and that I would make some for him as well.

And that's when I thought to myself, wouldn't it be cute to pipe football laces on the strawberries, especially since it was going to be Superbowl weekend?

So I washed and dried my strawberries, and again used a ziplock bag to pipe my melted white chocolate. (Although I think next time I'll use a piping bag - the ziplock method is pretty convenient, but I can't stand how messy it looks!)

Matthew saw me piping them and said, "Hey, they look like footballs!" Awesome! I was starting to think they looked kind of silly!

Turns out I wasn't the first one to think of this though! There are a ton of strawberry footballs out there on the internet, and most of them are even fancier because they are dipped in milk chocolate first, and then decorated with white chocolate laces. Oh well, great minds think alike ;)

hello kitty pastel pom pom birthday cake and cupcakes

My sweet Melodie turned four this past December! Where does the time go?!?

Last year, she requested a purple Hello Kitty cake, which I made to for us to celebrate with at home, and then I made these Hello Kitty mini cupcakes for her party at preschool. But this year, she requested a "rainbow Hello Kitty cake", so I decided to make her a pastel rainbow pom pom cake!

For the cake layers, I made a white layer and a pink layer, and sliced each in half horizontally. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream.

After a quick crumb coat with whipped cream, I let the cake set in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, I colored portions of the whipped cream with pastel colors - pink, lavender, mint green, and sky blue - all using Americolor gel paste food coloring. 

I also colored very small portions with black, red, and yellow for the eyes, bow, and nose. After quickly piping a Hello Kitty face on the top of the cake (see here and here for more examples on how I do this), I started piping the pom-poms around it, by piping stars with a Wilton #18 tip.

Then I filled the sides with piped stars as well, varying the colors randomly.

I loved the finished cake! And so did Melodie!

As for her class party, I made matching cupcakes! Pink on the inside, pastel pom-poms on the outside, with piped Hello Kitty faces on top. (see here, here, here, here, and here for more example of how I pipe mini Hello Kitty faces!)

Happy Birthday to my little Melodie!

christmas tree cutout apple pie

Along with the strawberry Santas that I made for Christmas dessert this year, I also made an apple pie. But not just any apple pie; this one was decorated with lots and lots of Christmas tree pie crust cut outs! I had seen pies like this on Pinterest in the past, mainly with star cut outs for the Fourth of July. So I thought it would be fun to do for Christmas as well.

So I made my favorite all-butter pie crust, and divided it in half. I rolled out and fitted the first half into a 9-inch pie pan, and used the other half to roll and cut out Christmas tree shapes with a cookie cutter.

Then I peeled, cored, and sliced 5 apples, tossed them with flour, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and salt, and spooned them on top of the bottom crust. And then it was time to decorate the top with the Christmas tree cut outs!

To help give the crust a nice golden color, I brushed the top of the crust with egg wash, and then sprinkled on sanding sugar. After baking the pie at 350F for about 50 minutes, it looked like this!

My pie crust and the cutouts shrank quite a bit, but it was still quite tasty!



Hope you had a Merry Christmas!

strawberry santas

I am an avid watcher of the Food Network, so when I saw Giada make these adorable strawberry Santas on her show, I just had to make them for Christmas this year!

Her recipe is super simple and easy, and great for the kids to help out with piping and attaching the eyes. I started by cutting the tops off of the strawberries to make a flat surface for them to stand upside-down on.

Then I sliced a chunk off of the tip of each strawberry - this would became Santa's hat.

Next, I whipped up a batch of fresh whipped cream (Giada's recipe uses a mascarpone frosting, but I wanted something lighter so I chose whipped cream instead), and filled a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. I piped a big swirl of frosting onto the bottom half of the strawberry, topped it with the top half of the strawberry, and piped a little dot for the white fluff on top of Santa's hat.

The finishing touch was mini chocolate chips for the eyes, with the pointy side of the mini chocolate chips pressed into the whipped cream.

And there you go! Super easy, and super cute!

By the way, here's what happened when I walked away from the kitchen for just a few minutes! My husband is from Hawaii so he just had to create his own strawberry Santa, complete with coconut tree made out of mini chocolate chips and strawberry leaves! Mele Kalikimaka!

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!

hello kitty mini cupcakes with purple bows

Along with the purple Hello Kitty birthday cake that I made for my daughter's 3rd birthday last year, I also made these mini cupcakes for her class birthday party at preschool.

First I made mini chocolate cupcakes, and then piped a Hello Kitty face on each one with cream cheese frosting. I used a large round tip to pipe an oval for the face, and a leaf tip to pipe the ears. And then used a small round tip for the eyes, nose, and whiskers.

Boy, have these come a long way since the first ones that I made for her one-year birthday party!

This time instead of piping the bows, I used multicolored heart shaped confetti sprinkles (and just picked out all the purple ones!)

They turned out to be a big hit at her class party.  And even the boys liked the Hello Kitty favors!

Stay tuned for the birthday goodies I end up making for her class party this year!

*** Update:
You can now find my recipe for Hello Kitty Mini Cupcakes in my new book, "The Hello Kitty Baking Book"! Enjoy!

purple hello kitty birthday cake

My daughter's fourth birthday is coming up in a few days, and I recently realized that I never got around to posting last year's cake!  Maybe it's because I thought the cake was just, meh, and it was nothing spectacular.  Or maybe it's because I baked and decorated it in a rush the day of her birthday, and I didn't have time to properly photograph it.  In any case, she had asked for a purple Hello Kitty cake, and that is what she got!

I still remember how cute she was that day; she wanted to "be a princess" and wear her pink tutu all day. She even got to lick the spatula after I finished making the whipped cream frosting!

I used the whipped cream frosting to fill and frost three layers of  homemade chocolate cake, for a very light and moist 6-inch layer cake.

After the top and sides of the cake were frosted, I finished it off with a shell border.

Then I piped a mini Hello Kitty face, and a birthday message for the birthday girl!

Since my little girl loves sprinkles, I threw some heart-shaped ones on along the shell border.

I kind of regretting adding the sprinkles though, it just all seemed to clash with the cake. But of course that was Melodie's favorite part. :)

Stay tuned for the cake I end up making for her this year - she has already placed her request!

thanksgiving pumpkin pie with hand-turkey cutout

Remember those Thanksgiving art projects you used to make in school, where you cut out the shape of your hand onto construction paper, or made a hand print with paint, and then turned it into a turkey? Something like this?

Well that was my inspiration for this pumpkin pie! (The hand print above was made by my 9-month old son at daycare!) I actually saw this somewhere on Pinterest, and just couldn't get the idea out of my head! So this pie was among the desserts that I made for this year's Thanksgiving dinner.

I started out by making my favorite all-butter pie crust, and fitted it into a 10-inch pie pan. I trimmed the excess dough from the edges of the pan, and crimped the edges with my fingers. Then I filled it with a simple pumpkin filling spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, and baked it until the crust was golden and the filling was set. Sadly, the crust shrank while baking in the oven, thus the slightly embarrassing edges!

With the trimmings of pie dough, I rolled it out and used a toothpick to mark the shape of my almost-four year old daughter's little hand, and then (without her hand there) I used a paring knife to cut out the shape.

I made sure to include the turkey's beak, eye, and feet!

Then I baked it on a cookie sheet at 375F for about 10 minutes until it turned golden brown.

Again, the crust cutout shrank (maybe I'm over-rolling my pie dough?) so I ended up with a teeny tiny hand turkey! But that's okay, a miniature turkey is just as cute!

Happy belated Thanksgiving!